


blood in my mouth

by ohlawsons



Series: cat nua [5]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Gen, Pillars Prompts Weekly, Post-Game, death godlike - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 19:24:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11858076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohlawsons/pseuds/ohlawsons
Summary: Their stories are mirrors of each other, and they're both moving towards Galawain.Or; Hiravias and Neria discuss gods, inevitability, and the future.





	blood in my mouth

**Author's Note:**

> written for @pillarspromptsweekly on tumblr 
> 
> set post-game. ask me about how neria's personal arc accidentally completely coincided with hiravias' and they became best friends

She sits at the edge of the temple, legs dangling over the cliffside as she stares out onto the horizon. The Northweald stretches out before her, and Twin Elms is just barely visible, far in the distance.

It’s a long trek back to the city, and they’ll need plenty of rest before they leave the temple; they’d come prepared to fight a dragon, but there’s only so much preparation to do and they’re all exhausted, some more than others but none of them are going anywhere without a good night’s rest. Eder and Hiravias took the worst of the hits, and Aloth thoroughly expended his spells, so Sagani does what she can to patch them all up and Kana hums a quiet tune that Neria swears eases the aching in her limbs.

She herself has more than her fair share of cuts and bruises and lingering magical ailments, but her battle rage -- the near-uncontrollable frenzy with which she fights, the blood lust and fury and _sharpness_ that has always kept her alive in combat -- leaves everything but her quarry blurry, out of focus, and she hadn’t been aware of her wounds during the battle. She’ll be sore in the morning, certainly, but for now Neria makes do with a handful of bandages.

There’s footsteps behind her, a gait so silent that she might’ve missed it if it weren’t one she’s so familiar with. “You know,” Hiravias says, as boisterous and irreverent as ever, “we typically carve them from bone.”

Neria glances up to where Hiravias stands behind her, giving a pointed look towards the little piece of wood she’s carving. It’s beginning to take the shape of the symbol of Galawain, and Neria takes a long, appraising look as if it’s sheer happenstance and hadn’t been her intention from the beginning. “So does this mean we’re on speaking terms again?” He hadn’t been _avoiding_ her, necessarily, but their confrontation with Scathden the evening before had left them both with much to think on.

“We’re always on speaking terms.” Hiravias sits beside her, one foot hanging down over the cliff and the other perched on the edge, an elbow propped up on his raised knee. “Who else would ogle delemgan with me?”

“Eder,” she says plainly, and her answer draws a wide grin from the druid.

“I wouldn’t think you would encourage it, now that the two of you are fucking.”

Coming from anyone else, the simplicity of the statement would’ve left Neria’s cheeks burning; with Hiravias, she just shakes her head and continues carving away at the symbol of Galawain. It’s almost recognizable, at this point, and she holds it in the palm of her hand and inspects it. “Everyone’s gossiping, I know. Funny, though, that no one’s brought it up as delicately as you.”

“It’s the least I could do, considering you and I have hunted down two dragons in as many months. And--” He stops, and the grin disappears and twists into a frown; he reaches -- unconsciously, Neria suspects -- for where his own symbol of Galawain is tucked beneath his shirt. “And for helping me.”

“You’re leaving after this,” she guesses, her hands dropping to rest in her lap. With Thaos gone, all that holds their little band together is the favors that Neria can do for them; Sagani’s still here, because Neria asked -- pleaded, really, if she’s being honest -- for her help with the dragon in Hylea’s temple, but she’ll be leaving again as soon as they’re back in Caed Nua. Aloth’s just waiting for the right time to speak with her, she knows, and they haven’t yet had time to tackle the immensity of the tunnels of Od Nua but now that they do, Neria doesn’t imagine Kana will stay long after, either.

But even if she thought delaying the trip to the druids of Twin Elms would’ve convinced Hiravias to stay longer, she still would’ve sought them out immediately. He’d wanted answers, and he’s her closest friend and she’d wanted to help; she doesn’t regret it, exactly, but part of her wishes she could’ve put off the meeting with Scathden just a _bit_.

She’d been searching for answers too, though, and their journeys had aligned in such a way that they’d both found themselves in Twin Elms, chasing down Galawain with questions and demands and favors. Perhaps, if she’d just turned to Berath -- like she’d resigned herself to before she’d ever stepped foot in Teir Evron; he’d cursed her once, maybe she could demand payment from him now -- she wouldn’t have felt such an overwhelming drive to pursue Hiravias’ own line of questioning.

But Galawain’s message of strength… Neria couldn’t ever claim to be devout, but strength and self-reliance and survival is something she’s familiar with, a hard lesson she learned long ago. Her gaze falls to the half-finished symbol in her hands, and her thoughts are completely interrupted as Hiravias elbows her in the side.

“Did you really think I would leave without helping you deal with that pompous lord who thinks he can take your keep from you?” he asks brightly, and the cheerfulness is forced but Neria doesn’t comment on it. After a moment, his tone sobers and he adds, “I do have to go back, though. I don’t know that the other druids will accept that Galawain offered both a test and a gift with the autumn staelgar,” he muses, and his voice turns deceptively light once again, “but neither can they claim to have stood before the Seeker God himself.”

“Good. It’s only fitting to use what they called a _curse_ against them.”

Hiravias watches her, silent, and even as Neria continues to inspect her carving she catches him just at the edge of her vision, his one-eyed gaze hard but not unkind. She doesn’t miss it, the question she knows is at the tip of his tongue, because it’s been on her mind since Teir Evron and she’s been searching for an answer she can justify.

“It’s not the same,” she tells him quietly, before he says anything. Hiravias left his home because he asked Galawain for power and he received it, power and strength and a blessing that he hadn’t understood at first; Neria hadn’t ever had the chance to ask Berath for _anything_ , and had been cast out because her family had feared the touch of the Twinned God. She’d accepted her fate as one of the godlike, but it isn’t a test and it certainly isn’t a gift.

He continues to regard her with that same intensity. “Maybe it isn’t,” he concedes, “but I spent years thinking I knew Galawain’s intent.”

She knows he’s trying to be helpful, but that doesn’t chase away the feeling that he’s simply doubting her. With a frown, Neria runs a thumb over the rough wood in her hands, brushing over the features of the wolf’s head that’s beginning to take shape. “I don’t care what Berath’s _intent_ was. I don’t respect them, I don’t fear them, I don’t give a shit about them.”

Hiravias’ good ear flicks, almost imperceptibly, and Neria wonders if it’s from his doubt or her blasphemy.

“I’m new to this whole _piety_ thing,” she says with a shrug, as if it’s any surprise. “But Galawain’s a god worth following -- and fuck everything Thaos said.” Neria understands, she thinks, how Hiravias came to worship Wael -- not Wael itself, because the _be satisfied with the question_ philosophy is horseshit -- because she’s now experienced that moment of clarity, the moment she stepped into that temple and was graced with a vision of Galawain and it _made sense_.

But Berath? Hiravias can follow two gods because he believes in both of their teachings, but Neria hasn’t ever believed in anything Berath represents.

“Strength and passion and knowledge are all admirable,” she continues, “but what am I supposed to do with Berath? They demand stoicism and acceptance and _inevitability_. My soul will return to the Wheel one day, but it’ll be _me_ , not the Pallid Knight, who makes the decision when and how.”

For a moment, Hiravias looks as if he intends to argue; instead, he fidgets and stares out over the Northweald. “Certainty looks good on you.” He grins, and it’s as genuine as ever and Neria returns it without hesitation. “I don’t envy the choices you’ve had to make recently, but there’s a clarity to you where your soul was once blurred. It seems travelling with me has done you much good.”

She laughs, because there’s more truth to the statement than he knows and because of Hiravias she’s found Galawain and she’s found strength and she’s found an understanding of the gods she couldn’t have ever imagined before. Maybe she would’ve come to those conclusions on her own, and maybe her hunt for Thaos would’ve given her this clarity regardless, but she has no love for Wael and its pointless hypotheticals, so she leans over and plants a kiss on Hiravias’ cheek; he blushes right up to the tip of his ear and Neria pretends not to notice.  “I’m going to miss you.”

“And I’ll miss you, my Watcher friend, but there’s still a hunt to be had for now, isn’t there?”

 


End file.
